Did you know Evolution Wonderlounge is a family-owned business? This uncles-and-nephew team have been running things at #yourgaybar since the summer of 2013 when it opened!
Murray and Scott met in 1985, at legendary Edmonton gay club Flashback. It was love at first sight, but they soon did what so many 80s prairies gays did and relocated to Vancouver. There, they built themselves a wonderful west coast life until the opportunity came to move to Palm Springs and take over a pair of gay hotels there. They rechristened these LaPosada hotels as Helios, with the website yourgayresort.com (sound familiar?). While running Helios, Murray and Scott and their partners Drew and Gord made a lot of connections in the circuit party and adult film industries, because let’s be honest, that’s what Palm Springs is all about. Those connections would prove useful when it came time for Evolution though.
Murray’s nephew Rob meanwhile grew up just outside of Edmonton, visiting his uncles in Vancouver usually once a year. Obviously having gay uncles meant a nice support for Rob’s own 90s coming out, and soon enough, Rob was visiting them in Vancouver and now they got to hit up Davie Street locations like Denman Station and Little Sisters together. After a few years in Lethbridge, Rob moved to Edmonton and got involved in local gay nightlife here, working at multiple locations over the years.
In the summer of 2012, Rob’s current employment at Junction bar and eatery was winding down; the owners were closing the business. At the same time, Murray and Scott were selling the hotels and moving back to Canada due to the economy down south. Would you like to do something together, they asked Rob, who immediately said yes.
You may not know this but the plan was originally to open in Calgary. They looked and looked, but couldn’t find the right place at the right price, and so they soon expanded their search to Edmonton. There, they found a nightclub for sale: The Warehouse, formerly Buffalo, formerly gay club Play. The location was right – right in what was going to be Edmonton’s exciting new Ice District – even though it was going to be another basement bar. (If you were at EVO in those first years, the white everywhere was designed to combat the basement).
EVO opened in the fall of 2013, using Murray and Scott’s Palm Springs to connections to bring in some porn stars plus international drag icon Chi Chi LaRue, and using Rob’s local gay connections to bring in community partners. Right from the beginning, EVO was about family – both biological and found.
